GoldFinger1969

Small Denomination Gold Supply Hits: Just to show what an increase in supply from a hoard can do, I bring you these prices on coins I don't track at all but found while reading up on the Fairmont Collection from Doug Winter's 5 Random Observation post from November 2023: "...Let’s look at the 1911-D $5 in PCGS MS63. In the 11/2023 Stack’s Bowers sale, a PCGS MS63 example brought $22,800. In March 2019, Stack’s Bowers sold a PCGS/CAC MS63 for $36,000. And what about the popular 1909-O $5? In the recent SB sale, a nice PCGS MS62 brought $28,800. In 11/2022, the same date in the same grade brought $31,200, while another PCGS MS62 brought $50,400 in the 4/2022 SB auction. This date is clearly trending downwards, and I believe that as more come onto the market, it will drop further in price." Caveat Emptor for ANY "rare" or supply-constrained coins you may buy as you never know where or when supply may come from.

Guest Commentator at Doug Winter's blog has some outstanding analysis on The Fairmont Collection. Last 2 commentaries really go in-depth to determine the composition of what has been released...what might still be out there....where the hoard supply risk is....etc: https://raregoldcoins.com/blog?category=Market Blog Of Note: the January 2024 post...scroll towards the bottom.....excellent summary of all the number-crunching and gives a nice summary....appears that this "hoard" is just under 400,000 total coins when you take into account ungradeds, details, etc. It really is massive. Could be one of the largest gold/coin hoards of U.S. coins ever, huh ? His analysis seems to be more on the composition of the hoard than where it may have come from (since that is really a speculative thing that I'm not sure we can know). I'm going to re-read the posts to see if I glossed over anything and see if I can follow the intricate guestimating he does on the composition of the denominations and supply. Quite frankly, the secrecy thing really bugs me -- especially after the coins have been sold and marketed, why not give us the damn information ? -- it's not the codes to the nuclear black box. Stacks-Bowers must know more details (they are handling the sales) and David Bowers, a numismatic researcher we all respect has dug into past hoards and is a partner, so maybe there's some hope left that we'll get more details. I understand that they have a fiduciary and business obligation to maximize the sale proceeds and if they believe giving out information like that would have (or still would) negatively impact pricing, I get being quiet. Of course, that wasn't the case with the (smaller) Saddle Ridge Hoard. We saw the same lack of details on the 1908 No Motto Wells Fargo Saint Hoard so let's not hope for a repeat.

Just wanted to say that for any non-experts who have this book and read it years ago....you may find that re-reading it a 2nd time with your accumulated knowledge from this hobby (including forums like this) makes it much easier to read and information much more sticky. I posted to this effect in another thread here. If anybody DOES re-read the book a 2nd time years after reading it the 1st time when their knowledge of Proofs was much less, I'd be interested in hearing if the 2nd time through was really beneficial. So far, I'm finding the answer is YES to another Whitman Red Book.

2nd Time Is Better: Just wanted to say that I am reading Bowers book on Double Eagles for the 2nd time and it is SO MUCH easier to comprehend lots of the data, striking and die information, intricate descriptions, etc. I think this applies to ANY book but especially ones we first read in this hobby because sometimes just getting through the book is the goal instead of retaining lots of information. That is certainly true with a huge volume like RWB's Saints book. Eventually, I am going to re-read it from beginning to end.....and the same with FMTM which was a book I really didn't absorb at all (I think I got it like 7-8 years ago before I was super-active on the coin threads). Reading and posting thousands of times on all the different forums you become that much more knowledgeable about stuff, even if you still lag the veterans and experts. But it makes re-reading books you may have just skimmed that much more immersive and understandable.

I thought the topic was "Kevin Simpson" ?

Isn't it a TOS Violation to post while under the influence of LSD ?

Do we know WHY sometimes the polishing lines show and other times they don't ? With modern coins, with everything tightly controlled, I would think we would. Must have something to do with the wear on the dies, huh ?

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Is there a book solely on Proof Gold Coins ?

So they go by total population census then ?

Apparently, "person" meant ANYBODY -- even kids. I think it was interpreted like that. $100 was a decent amount of savings in 1933....if you had a husband and wife and a few kids...plus some other family members like in-laws living with you (say, on a farm)....it wouldn't be a stretch to see some housholds easily be able to hold $500-$1,000 in gold....assuming they had it and could afford it.

The numismatic exemption was the loophole that allowed "gold bugs" or those who wanted to own gold to hedge inflation or economic problems. The collectors in the 1940's and 1950's (i.e., Eliasberg) took advantage of this (maybe it was in Roger's book, I can't remember). Didn't matter if the numismatic premium to gold was 20% or 2,000%. I'm kind of suprised that Spencer Marsh (1932's) and other high-profile gold folks (like the guy who sued Chase Manhattan when they seized his gold) didn't have their lawyers use this loophole. Just say you were a collector and/or the coins were not pure bullion, but part of a collection.

Roger.....on Page 151 you have FN 188 saying that until RoAC it was assumed that Barber changed the date from MCMVII to 1907. You say that was an error but the text attached to the FN doesn't imply anybody else worked on the coin. Under COMMENTARY, you mention Barber fiddling around with the design and deviating more from ASG's vision. But no other name is listed. So who are you implying was responsible for the change from the Roman to Arabic date numbers ?

Here's the EO and the exemption is listed in Section 2(b):

Are these commemoratives down in price from the 1980's bubble prices ? Have they come back a good bit or what ?

Here is the link, hope that linking ATS is permitted here: https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/comment/13643555#Comment_13643555 I commented that it was a spectacular coin....and FFL commented about the SP designation and the coin's pedigree. It's about 2/3rds of the way down the thread....make sure to check out the pictures of some great coins, including the MCMVII HR discussed here.

Let me find the post, get more info. It was a few weeks ago and I forgot about the context but should be able to find the post again.

Unfortunately, it looks like many of the coins in Bower's book don't have definitive opinions on all 3 variables. Akers book does....yours certainly does. Well, I'll see how it turns out.

Strike vs. Luster vs. Eye Appeal: Doing a little project....I'm comparing the rankings and comments on Strike, Luster, and Eye Appeal on all the Saint-Gaudens DEs from 3 of my Double Eagle Books: Akers (2008), Bowers (2004), and Roger (2018). If anybody wants me to post the sheet when I'm finished, let me know. It's not an exact science, I'm using letter grades and sometimes they aren't directly commenting but you have to read related commentary to fish it out.

If you want to get out of Jury Duty, just take Homer Simpsons' advice :

From what I have seen, he's clearly not trying to counterfeit -- his coins are like those round tokens that are given out at all kinds of venues, some plastic... some wood....some metal.. Not my cup of tea, but I think we have more evil criminals out there to worry about.

I have taken to saving interesting articles on coins in PDF format or cutting-and-pasting into Word and saving it that way. I've done that for Heritage Auction commentaries on Saints and other trophy coins....and internet articles/legal mumbo-jumbo on the 1933 Double Eagle. You're right about having to organize the stuff. My 1933 Word piece containing all kinds of articles and relevant and not-so-relevant articles was over 320 pages at one point ...but cutting out dupes, eliminating excess spaces, etc....I've since cut it down to about 270. It might pay to save stuff you KNOW you will use in Word or PDF format -- as opposed to stuff you may just find interesting and/or fear it might depart the Internet or some database and not be retrievable again -- because then you can use the FIND feature to look it up. The workload for your Saints book must have been astronomical compared to 1 small 2-page article in CoinWeek. Those of you reading this, consider this for anything of interest TO YOU, too. This site underwent a major renovation over a decade ago I believe -- some threads and posts may have been lost, or just more difficult to find. You never know when a Thread or post will be locked or deleted, a website gets a DOS attack, the entire company folds up, etc. If it's critical or unique information here or elsewhere, save it to YOUR PC !!

I love "fill-in-the-blank" articles or books that go into more depth and detail on something we just have surface knowledge about (i.e, gold ownersip prohibited). Hope you write more about these. For me, stuff from the 1900's onward is more my interest but I get how some people like stuff about the 1700's and 1800's. Just curious....any idea how long it took you to do the article, both on the research gathering/double-checking...and then the actual writing of the article ? Myself, I find that about 10-20% of the time is spent on writing and re-writing and trimming, cutting, re-wording, etc....and the other 80-90% was the actual gathering of the facts, outline, footnotes, etc. Your article was well-written. An article can interest me...it can have interesting ideas....but if it is poorly-written or laid-out, it can defeat the whole purpose and make reading it a chore. Same thing with speakers, of whom I have booked many: I've seen boring, confusing topics done top-notch and keep an audience on the edge of their seat....I've had great topics I thought would be of interest with simple easy-to-understand facts and slides...and people doze off because the presenter is a bad speaker, all over the place, and doesn't have a good layout of his or her material.

For the uninformed....so he specializes in re-creating old favorites with minor changes (so as not to be accused of counterfeiting, I take it) -- do I have that right ?

I'm really not that familiar with Dcarr's works, though we have sparred on other issues ATS. I'm pretty much agnostic on what he does. Are his works considered commemoratives ? I would think not. They're not NCLT, but I do really like some of the private-issue creations like the National Park Foundation Saint-Gaudens coins, silver and gold. Kind of nice to see ASG's various designs and sketches come to life.